The Commoner.
5
'AUGUST 1C. 191t
am I on of thoo who believe that business dono
upon, a great scale by a single organization
call It corporation or what you will Is neces
sarily dangerous to the liberties, even the econ
omic liberties, of a great people like our own,
full of intelligence and of indomitable energy.
I am not afraid of anything that is normal. I
dare say wo shall never return to the old order
of Individual competition, and that the organi
sation of business upon a groat scale of co-operation
is, up to a certain point, itself normal and
inevitable.
MONOPOLY MUST BE SHACKLED
"Power in the hands of great business men
doeB not make mo apprehensive, unless it
springs out of advantages which they have not
created for themselves. Big business is not
dangerous becauso it is big, but because its big
ness is an unwholesome inflation created by
privilege and exemptions which it ought not to
enjoy. While competition can not be created
by statutory enactment, it can in large measure
be revived by changing the laws and forbidding
the practices that killed it, and by enacting
laws that will give it heart and occasion again.
We can arrest and prevent monopoly. It has
assumed new shapes and adopted new processes
in our time, but these are now being disclosed
and can be dealt with.
"The general terms of the present federal
anti-trust law, forbidding 'combinations in re
straint of trade' have apparently proved ineffec
tual. Trusts have grown up under its ban very
luxuriantly, and have pursued the methods by
which so many of them have established virtual
monopolies without serious let or hindrance. It
has roared against them like any sucking dove.
I am not assessing the responsibility, I am
merely stating the fact. But the means and
methods by which trusts have established mo
nopolies have now become known. It will be
necessary to supplement the present law with
such laws, both civil and criminal, as will effec
tually punish and prevent those methods, adding
such other laws as may be necessary to provide
suitable and adequate judicial processes,
whether civil or criminal, to disclose them and
follow them to final verdict and judgment. They
must be specifically and directly met by laws as
they develop.
. THRUST AT MONEY POWER
But the problem and the difficulty are much
greater than that. There are not merely great
trusts and combinations which are to be con
trolled and deprived of their power to create
monopolies and destroy rivals; there is some
thing bigger still than they are and more subtle,
more evasive, more difficult to deal with. There
are vast confederacies (as I may perhaps call
them for the sake of convenience) of banks,
railways, express companies, insurance com
panies, manufacturing corporations, mining cor
porations, power and development companies
and all the rest of the circle, bound together by
the fact that the ownership of their stock and
the members of the boards of directors are
controlled and determined by comparatively
small and closely interrelated groups of per
sons who, by their informal confederacy, may
control, if they please and when they will, botli
credit and enterprise. There is nothing illegal
about these confederacies, so far as I can per
ceive. They have come about very naturally,
generally without plan or deliberation, rather
because there was so much money to be invested
and it was in the hands, at great financial cent
ers, of men acquainted with one1 another and
intimately associated in business, than because
anyone had conceived and was carrying out a
plan of general control; but they are none the
less potent a force in our economic and financial
system on that account. They are part of our
problem. Their very existence gives rise to
tho suspicion of a 'money trust,' a concentra
tion of tho control of credit which may at any
time become infinitely dangerous to free enter
prise. If such a concentration and control does
not actually exist, it is evident that It can easily
be set up and used at will. Laws must be de
vised which will prevent- this, if laws can bo
worked out by fair and free counsel that will
accomplish that result without destroying or
seriously embarrassing any sound or legitimate
business undertaking or necessary and whole
some arrangement.
DECLARES FOR RULE OF RIGHT
"Let mo say again, that what we are seeking
is not destruction of any kind, nor the disruption
of any sound or honest thing, but merely the
rule of right and of the common advantage. I
am happy to say that a new spirit has begun
to show itself in the last year or two ''among
influential men of business, and, what' is per
haps even more significant, among the lawyers
who are their export advisors; and that this
spirit has displayed itself very notably in
tho last few months in an effort to roturn, in
some degroo at any rate, to tho practices of
genuine competition. Only a very llttlo while
ago our men of business wore united In resist
ing every proposal of change and reform as an
attack on business, an embarrassment to all
largo enterprise, an intimation that settled ideas
of property were to bo set aside and a now and
strange order of things created out of hand.
While they thought in that way progress seemed
impossible without hot contests and a bitter
clash between interests, almost a war of classes.
Common counsel seemed all but hopeless, be
cause some of the chief parties in interest would
not take part seemed even to resent discus
sion as a manifestation of hostility towards
themselves. They talked constantly about
vested interests and were very hot.
"It is a happy omen that their attitude has
changed. They see that what is right can hurt
no man; that a new adjustment of interests is
inevitable and desirable, is in tho interest of
everybody; that their own honor, their own in
telligence, their own practical comprehension of
affairs is involved. They are beginning to 'ad
just their business to the new standards. Their
hand is no longer against tho nation; they are
part of it, their interests are bound up with its
interests. This is not true of all of them, but
it is true of enough of them to show what tho
new age is to be, and how the anxioties of states
men are to bo eased, if the light that is dawn
ing broadens Into day.
LABOR IS LIFE OF NATION
"If I am right about this, it is going to be
easier to act in accordance with the rule of
right and justice in dealing with tho labor
question. The so-called labor question is a
question only because we have not yet found
the rule of right in adjusting the interests of
labor and capital. Tho welfare, the happiness,
the energy and spirit of the men and women
who do the daily work in our mines and fac
tories, on our railroads, in our offices and marts
of trade, on our farms and on the sea, is of tho
essence of our national life. There can be noth
ing wholesome unless their life is wholesome;
there can be no contentment unless they are con
tented. Their physical welfare affects tho
soundness of the whole nation. We shall novor
got very far in tho settlement of these vital
matters so long as wo regard everything dono
for the working man, by law or by private agree
ment, as a concession yielded to keep him from
agitation and a disturbance of our peace. Here,
again, the sense of universal partnership must
come into play if we are to act like statesmen,
as those who serve, not a class, but a nation.
"Tho working people of America if they
must be distinguished from the minority that
constitutes the rest of it are, of course, the
backbone of the nation. No law that safe
guards their life, that improve tho physical and
moral conditions under which they live, that
makes their hours of labor rational and toler
able, that gives them freedom to act in their
own interest, and that protects them where they
can not protect themselves, can properly bo re
garded as class legislation or as anything but
as a measure taken in tho interests of the whole
people, whose partnership in right action wo are
trying to establish and make real and practical.
It Ib in this spirit that we shall act if we are
genuine spokesmen of the whole country.
"As our program is disclosed for no man
can forecast it ready-made and before counsel
is taken of every one concerned this must be
its measure and standard, the Interest of all con
cerned. For example, in dealing with the com
plicated and difficult question of tho reform
of our banking and currency laws, It is plain
that we ought to consult very many persons be
sides the bankers, not because we distrust tho
bankers, but because they do not necessarily
comprehend tho business of the country, not
withstanding they are indispensable servants of
it and may do a vast deal to make it hard or
easy. No mere bankers' plan will meet the re
quirements, no matter how honestly conceived.
It should be a merchants and farmers' plan as
well, elastic in the hands of those who use it
as an indispensable part of their daily busi
ness. I do not know enough about this subject
to be dogmatic about it. I know only enough
to be sure what the partnerships in It should
be, and that the control exercised over any
system we may set up should be, so far as pos
sible, a control emanating, not fijora a single
special class, but from the general., body and
authority of the nation itself. . , .,-
NOT OWNERS OF PHILIPPINES
"In dealing with the Philippines, we should
not allow ourselves to stand upon any moro
point of pride, as if, in order to keep our coun
tenance in tho families of nations, it wore neces
sary for us to make tho same blundors of selfish
ness that other nations have made. Wo are not
tho ownors of the Philippine Islands. Wo hold
them In trust for the pcoplo who live In them.
They are theirs, for tho uses of their llfo. We
arc not even their partners. It Is our duty, as
trustees, to make whatever arrangemont of gov
ernment will be most servlcoablo to their free
dom and development. Hero, again, wo are to
sot up tho rule of Justlco and of right.
"Tho rule of the pcoplo Is no Idle phrase,
those who believe In It, as who does not that has
caught tho real spirit of Amorlca, bollovo that
there can bo no rulo of right without it; that
right in politics is mado up of the interests of
everybody, and everybody should take part In
tho action that Is to determine It. Wo have
been keen for presidential prlmarlos and tho
direct election of United States senators, be
cause wo wanted tho action of tho government
to be determined by persons whom tho pooplo
had actually designated as men whom thoy were
ready to trust and follow. Wo havo boon
anxious that all campaign contributions and ex
penditures should be disclosed to he public in
fullest detail, because we regardod the Influences
which govern campaigns to bo as much a part of
the people's buslnoss as anything else connected
with their government. We are working to
ward a vory definite object, tho universal part
nership In public affairs upon which tho purity
of politics and its aim and spirit depend.
"For there is much for the partnors to under
take. In tho affairs of a great nation wo plan
and labor, not for tho present only, but for tho
long future as woll. There are great tasks of
protection and conservation and development
to which wo havo to address oursolvos. Gov
ernment has much moro to do than merely to
right wrongs and sot tho house In order.
RESOURCES MUST BE SAVED
"I do not know any greater question than
that of conservation. Wo havo been a spend
thrift nation and must now husband what wo
have left. Wo must do more than that. Wo
must develop, as woll as preserve, our water
powers and must add great waterways to the
transportation facilities of the nation, to sup
plement the railways within our borders as woll
as upon tho isthmus. Wo must rovlvo our mer
chant marine, too, and fill the seas again with
our own fleets. Wo must add to our present post
office service a parcels post as complete as that
of any other nation. Wo must look to the health
of our people upon overy hand, as woll as
hearten them with Justlco and opportunity.
This Is tho constructive work of the govern
ment. This is tho policy that has a vision and
a hope and that looks to serve mankind.
"Thore are many sides to theso great mat
ters. Conservation Is easy to generalize about,
but hard to particularize about wisely. Reserva
tion is not tho whole of conservation. Tho de
velopment of great states must not be stayed
Indefinitely to await a policy by which our for
ests and water powers can prudently be made
use of. Use and development must go hand in
hand. The policy we adopt must bo progressive,
not negative, merely, as if. wo did not know
what to do.
"With regard to the development of greater
and moro numerous waterways and the build
ing up of a merchant marine, we must follow
great constructive lines and not fall back upon
the cheap device of bounties and subsidies. In
the case of the Mississippi river, that great cen
tral artery of our trade, it is plain that tho
federal government must build and maintain
tho levees and keep tho great waters in har
ness for the general use. It Is plain, too, that
vast sums of money must bo spent to develop
new waterways where trade will be most served
and transportation most readily cheapened by
them. Such expenditures are no largess on the
part of tho government; they are national in
vestments. TARIFF DAMS FOREIGN TRADE
"The question or a merchant marine turns
back to the tariff again, to which all roads seem
to lead, and to our registry laws, which, if
coupled with the tariff, might almost be sup
posed to have been intended to take the Ameri
can flag off the seas. Bounties are not neces
sary If you will but undo some of the things
that have been done. ' Without a great merchant
marine we can not take our rightful place in
the commerce of the world. Merchants, -who
must depend upon the carriers of rival mercan
tile nations to carry their goods to market are
at a disadvantage in international trade too
manifest to need to be pointed out; and our
A J,m -J'